"Not only did Bernard Berrian bolt Halas Hall for richer pastures, but he left the Bears' unparalleled quarterback carousel behind.

Berrian said Wednesday that the Bears' uncertainty at quarterback was part of the equation -- you know, along with the millions more the Minnesota Vikings offered -- in his departure via free agency.

It sounds reasonable, until you consider that the quarterback Berrian left to join forces with, Tarvaris Jackson, was an unproven project who lost his job after two games. Now he's lined up with 37-year-old Gus Frerotte, who will not be a long-term connection.

That doesn't mean change hasn't been good for Berrian. The Vikings are 3-1 since Frerotte assumed the controls, and Berrian has emerged the last two weeks with 11 receptions for 241 yards and two touchdowns. The Bears' beleaguered defense is in an interesting situation this week. It has to focus on Vikings running back Adrian Peterson -- who ran through SUV-sized holes when he rolled for 224 yards on 20 carries last season at Soldier Field -- and hope Berrian doesn't get loose.

''It's definitely a game where we're going to gear up to stop Adrian,'' free safety Mike Brown said.

If the Bears sell out to stop Peterson, then Berrian, who wasn't deemed worthy of the $7.848 million franchise tag, could beat them. It happened last week, when the Bears held Atlanta's Michael Turner to 54 yards on 25 carries but watched Matt Ryan pass for 301 yards -- 112 and a touchdown to Roddy White -- as the Falcons picked up 14 of their 18 first downs through the air.

Berrian said he wanted the Bears' quarterback situation to be settled and didn't want to go through a Kyle Orton-Rex Grossman derby. But truth be told, the six-year, $42 million deal the Vikings presented blew away the Bears, who were offering closer to $5.5 million annually. The Bears had room to put the franchise tag on him because they're about $9 million under the salary cap.

''I knew they weren't going to come out of the pocket and pay for that,'' he said.

Berrian stopped short of calling Chicago a graveyard for receivers, as his former starting mate Muhsin Muhammad did, but he knows where Moose was coming from.

''It was hard being a receiver over there,'' he said. ''There was so much -- let me see, what's the right word to say -- it was a carousel. It was a quarterback carousel. So it's hard to get rhythm with a quarterback and really know what you're going into and what you're looking at.''"